Wreck-It Ralph

Wreck-It Ralph is definitely a movie you want to eat candy during. Obviously this one is aimed at the kiddies but there were some adult moments that had me smiling, but even better Wreck-It Ralph made me happy. Perhaps it was that “children of the candy corn” line. There’s also a very lesbian military femme whose jokes may fall on deaf ears as far as the target audience goes.

Disney knows how to bring iconic characters together and here it’s the gentle giant and the ballerina princess. (If you think about it Disney did the same thing with The Game Plan where NFL quarterback Dwayne The Rock Johnson discovers he has an eight-year old daughter.) I don’t know if all the video games on display are real (Sugar Ride) but there are guest appearances by famous video game characters like Pac Man.

Basically Ralph wants to be a good guy because that’s who he really is so he goes turbo, or in the parlance of this movie he jumps from arcade game to arcade game seeking his inner self. WIR veers into low-grade imagery to depict how games looked in the ‘80s and then zooms back into candy colored high definition to let you know we’re in the present moment.

The real reason to enjoy this lark of an animated film is the Pixar short that opens the film – The Paperman. Paperman unwinds in black and grey and white with red lipstick being the only primary color. In a few minutes this brilliant short explains all anyone needs to know about love.